World Snooker Championship | Snooker Wiki | Fandom powered by Wikia Edit The first championship was held in 1927 and Joe Davis helped to organise the event. Matches were held at various venues, and the final took place at Camkin's Hall, Birmingham. Joe Davis won the event, beating Tom Dennis 20-11. His prize money was £6.10s. The highest break of the tournament was 60 by Albert Cope. In subsequent years, finals were held at various venues. Joe Davis won every year until 1940. Despite an upsurge in interest in snooker there were only two entrants for the 1931 professional championship . The event was staged in the back room of a Nottingham pub, owned by Tom Dennis . The fact that he was playing on his own table didn't help as Joe Davis ran out a 25-21 winner for his fifth consecutive victory. In 1940, Joe Davis just beat his younger brother Fred 37-36.

No tournaments were organised during the remaining World War II and it only resumed in 1946 when Joe Davis won again for the 15th time, a record that still stands. Joe Davis never contested the world championship again, though he continued to play professional snooker. Walter Donaldson won in 1947, but it was Fred Davis who dominated the next few years, winning it three times in 1948, 1949 and 1951. In 1952, as a result of a disagreement between the governing bodies (the Billiards Association and Control Council), and some of the players, two tournaments were held. The World Matchplay , organised by the players and widely viewed as the "real" world championship, continued until 1957. The BA&CC event only lasted one year. Meanwhile the 'official' world championship did attract two entrants in 1952, Horace Lindrum (Australia) beating New Zealand's Clark McConachy – and it is Lindrum's name that is inscribed on the familiar trophy.

Snooker then went into a period of decline, and no tournament was held between 1958 and 1963. In 1964 it was revived on a challenge basis, a format which lasted until 1968. This meant that matches took place on an irregular basis, sometimes more than once a year. John Pulman completely dominated during this period, overcoming all challengers in a total of seven matches. The championship reverted back to a knockout tournament in 1969. That year it was won by John Spencer , but it was Ray Reardon who was to dominate over the coming years, winning six times between 1970 and 1978. 1976 was the first year the championships were sponsored by the cigarette brand Embassy. The following year, the event moved to the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield and the BBC started providing major television coverage. The Crucible seats fewer than a thousand people with the front row of seats only a few feet from the players. This was about the time snooker started attracting very large television audiences and for many fans it is synonymous with snooker.

The most successful players at the Crucible are Steve Davis , who won six times in the 1980s, and Stephen Hendry , who won seven times in the 1990s. Recently, the tournament has been more open, with six different players winning in the 2000s. In the 1985 final , Dennis Taylor beat Steve Davis 18-17 on the final ball of the final frame, in one of the most closely contested matches of all time. It finished at 00:19 but was superseded as the latest finish first by the 2006 final (00:52 BST), then the 2007 final (00:55 BST). In 2004 , the championship offered a total of £1,378,920 in prize money, including £250,000 for the winner and £125,000 for the runner-up. A further £147,000 was on offer for a 147 break, though no player achieved this. Recent legislation has placed restrictions on tobacco advertising, including sponsorship of sporting events.

Embassy had a special dispensation to continue snooker sponsorship until 2005. The Championship is currently sponsored by Betfred.com after 888.com pulled out of their five year sponsorship deal after three years. On 15 April 2009, the World Snooker Championship website announced that Betfred.com would be the new sponsor of the World Championship for the next four years. On 27 April 2009, it was confirmed that the World Championships would stay at the Crucible for at least another five years (until 2014). Winners In the 2009 Championship, Stephen Hendry won his 1000th frame at the Crucible Theatre , against Ding Junhui . Horace Lindrum of Australia, who won in 1952, Cliff Thorburn of Canada, who won in 1980 and Ken Doherty of Ireland, who won in 1997, are the only champions from outside the United Kingdom. Lindrum's official title is often discounted, as most of the best players did not compete.

Surprise winners at the Crucible include Joe Johnson and Shaun Murphy , who won in 1986 and 2005 respectively against odds of 150-1 each, and Terry Griffiths , whose 1979 victory came in only his second professional tournament. Jimmy White has reached six finals, but has never won. The closest he came was 18-17 in 1994 against Stephen Hendry , on his 32nd birthday. Ronnie O'Sullivan is the only finalist in the modern era to have never lost in a final. Ken Doherty is the only player to have won the world title at junior, amateur and professional level. Stephen Hendry holds the record for the longest unbeaten run at the Crucible Theatre . He won the Championship every year between 1992 and 1996, and continued unbeaten until the 1997 final. John Parrott is the only player to have recorded a whitewash in the final tournament. He beat Eddie Charlton 10-0 in the first round in 1992 .

Since the tournament has been held at the Crucible only two players have successfully defended a world title: Steve Davis in 1984, 1988 and 1989, and Stephen Hendry 1993-1996. No player has successfully defended his first title in the modern era. Media coverage Edit BBC coverage used to be hosted from its inception in 1976 until 2000 by David Vine with commentary by Ted Lowe . Since 2000 the BBC coverage has been hosted by Hazel Irvine or Ray Stubbs or more recently with Rishi Persad when Hazel or Ray are unavailable. Commentary is by a raft of ex-pros and current pros including Willie Thorne , Dennis Taylor , John Virgo , John Parrott , Steve Davis , Ken Doherty , Clive Everton , Terry Griffiths and Neal Foulds . The BBC will continue to televise this event (along with three other tournaments) until 2011. IMG Media (initially as TWI) have produced the BBC's snooker coverage since 1998. Eurosport also provide coverage of the event.

Steve Davis (Snooker) | ArmchairGM Wiki | Fandom powered by Wikia [ show ] Biography Steve Davis OBE (born August 22, 1957) is an English professional snooker player who lives in Brentwood, Essex with his wife and two sons. Davis has won more professional snooker titles (including six world and six UK championships) than any other player and is justifiably considered one of the greatest players of all time. Such was Davis's popularity and dominance in the 1980s, it was suggested that he was on television more often than the then Prime Minister. At the age of 49, he is still going strong, retaining his place in the elite world top-16 players almost every year, and hoping to remain there at least until his 50th birthday. For the 2006-07 season, he is ranked no. 11. After a successful amateur career that saw him win underage titles in snooker and billiards, Davis turned professional in 1978. He made his debut at the World Championship a year later, losing 11-13 to Dennis Taylor in the first round.

His performance at the 1980 tournament saw a significant improvement as he reached the quarter-finals, knocking out defending champion Terry Griffiths en route, before losing to Alex Higgins. Davis won his first major title in the same year - the UK Championship - during which he comprehensively beat two of his close rivals, Griffiths 9-0 in the semi-finals and Higgins 16-6 in the final. He reached his first World final in 1981, having again seen off Higgins and Griffiths in the second round and the quarter-finals respectively, as well as reigning world champion Cliff Thorburn in the semi-finals and a young Jimmy White in the opening round. Davis' 18-12 victory over Doug Mountjoy in the final ushered in an era of dominance - he would reach seven of the next eight finals - and in celebration his manager Barry Hearn famously charged across the arena to lift him up in the air. He followed up his world title win with a 9-0 final victory over Dennis Taylor in the Jameson International and then emphatically retained the UK Championship with a 9-0 win over White in the semi-final and a 16-3 win over Griffiths in the final.

In 1982, he made TV sporting history when he compiled the first televised 147 maximum break at the Lada Classic at Oldham Civic Centre against John Spencer, though he was beaten 9-8 in the final by Griffiths. He made amends for that defeat in February by beating Griffiths in the final of the Benson & Hedges Masters, the first of his three titles there. Davis suffered a shock 10-1 loss to Tony Knowles in the first round at the World Championships in 1982, and was also denied a third consecutive UK title with defeat in the quarter-finals to Griffiths. Following those two setbacks, he won the first of four World Doubles titles with partner Tony Meo. Davis regained the world title the following season with a session in the final to spare, defeating an overwhelmed Thorburn, who had seen his previous three matches go to a deciding frame, 18-6, and a year later became the first man to retain his title at the Crucible Theatre by beating Jimmy White 18-16 in the final.

Davis lost 16-15 to Higgins in the 1983 UK Championship final, despite having led 7-0 in the opening stages. He regained that title in 1984 by beating Higgins 16-8 and thereafter held it until his defeat in the semi-finals in 1988 to the up-and-coming Stephen Hendry, comprehensively beating Neal Foulds in the 1986 final and then White 16-14 in the close-fought 1987 final. Davis had looked set to lose the 1985 final to Willie Thorne who, leading 13-8 in the best of 31 frames match, missed a blue which would have given him a 14-8 lead. Davis won the frame and then seven of the next eight to win 16-14. Perhaps his most notable match was the 1985 World Championship final against Dennis Taylor.

Davis seemed set for his third consecutive win, with an opening session of near-faultless snooker giving him a 7-0 lead, which was extended to 8-0 in the evening session, before Taylor bounced back to trail only 7-9. From 12-12 the pair traded frames, and at 17-17 the match went into a deciding frame. With the score close, Taylor potted to the final colours to leave the black as the winner-takes-all ball. After a series of safety shots and attempts at potting it, Davis overcut the black, leaving Taylor with a straightforward pot to secure the championship. The nailbiting finale saw a record post-midnight audience on British television and a record audience for BBC2 of 18 million people. He gained a measure of revenge over Taylor shortly afterwards, winning their Rothmans Grand Prix final, also in the deciding frame.

At the 1986 world championship, having seen off White 13-5 in the quarter-finals and Thorburn 16-12 in a gruelling semi-final, he faced 150-1 outsider Joe Johnson in the final, but surprisingly lost 18-12 to the Yorkshireman. The result didn't affect his position at the of the world rankings, as he had won the UK, the Grand Prix and the British Open in the past year. He met Johnson in the final again a year later, with Davis winning 18-14. He went into the 1988 world championship as the holder of three ranking titles - the Mercantile Credit Classic, the Players Championship and the UK Championship - as well as the Masters and the Irish Masters. In the tournament itself he rarely looked back, beating Mike Hallett 13-1, Tony Drago 13-4 and Thorburn 16-8 en route to the final, where at 8-8 with Griffiths after two sessions, he pulled away to secure his 5th world title by winning 18-11.

A year later Davis completed the most crushing World Championship final victory in the modern era when he defeated John Parrott 18-3 in 1989. In the same tournament he also set the record for the fewest frames conceded (23) at the championships en route to winning it. That win was, to date, Davis' last world title, though he continued to compete and win tournaments well into the 1990s. He was replaced as world number one by Stephen Hendry at the end of the 1990-91 season. For the most part he has retained his place in the top 16, and reached the world semi-finals in 1990, 1991 and 1994. Among others he won four of his eight Irish Masters titles, the European Open and the Mercantile Credit Classic during the decade. Arguably the most memorable of his later tournmant wins came in the Benson & Hedges Masters in 1997. Trailing his opponent Ronnie O'Sullivan 8-4 in the final, he reeled off the next 6 frames to secure a 10-8 win.

That win remains in his last in a major snooker tournament. He was runner-up in the Welsh Open to O'Sullivan in 2004 and in 2005 enjoyed an up-turn in form, reaching the quarter finals of the World Championship before losing to eventual winner Shaun Murphy. In 2006 he lost to the same player in the second round. He reached his 100th career final by beating Stephen Hendry (for the first time in twelve years) 9-6 at the UK Championship held in York in December 2005. In the final he met the rising Chinese star, Ding Junhui, who is thirty years his junior - equalling the largest-ever disparity in ages between ranking tournament finalists - but lost by ten frames to six. Despite losing it took him to 3rd place in the provisional rankings, his highest position in a decade. By 2006, he had won a record 73 professional titles, 28 of them in ranking events. His record of six world titles in the modern era has been bettered only by Stephen Hendry and no player has yet matched his tally of six UK titles.

Davis became known for his coolness and impeccable conduct in high-pressure situations, earning himself the nicknames The Ginger Magician, and The Nugget. His featureless expressions and somewhat monotonous interviewing style earned him a reputation as boring. As a result, the satirical television series Spitting Image gave him the ironic nickname Steve 'Interesting' Davis. Davis himself has long played upon this image, particularly as a pundit and commentator for the BBC's snooker coverage and as a guest on television quizzes such as They Think It's All Over, with an appealing line in deadpan humour. He is co-author (with Geoff Atkinson) of the humorous book How To Be Really Interesting (1988). In 1988, Davis was named the BBC Sports Personality of the Year and was made an MBE. He was awarded an OBE in 2001 and is currently honorary president of the Snooker Writers' Association. Davis has taken up his non-snooker interests in the public arena too. In 1983, he hosted The Steve Davis Sports Quiz for Channel 4 and later a soul music show for commercial radio stations, titled Steve Davis' Interesting Soul.

Since 1996 he has presented a similar show on his local radio station, Phoenix FM. He is also a keen chess player and was, for a while, the President of the British Chess Federation. In 1995 Davis began playing pool professionally and is responsible for the institution of the Mosconi Cup, a multi-day competition between teams from the USA and Europe, inspired by and roughly based on the format of the Ryder Cup. He has also become a proficient poker player, with successful appearances at televised tournaments; one of these included an appearance at the final table together with fellow snooker player Jimmy White, who eventually won. Davis is a big fan of the French Progressive Rock band Magma, and even organised a concert in London so he could watch them. Davis is no relation to snooker players Joe Davis and Fred Davis. Statistics History of Snooker - World Snooker History of Snooker Fu on FIRE as he sets up O'Sullivan Semi Final History of Snooker The History of Snooker It is 140 years since a young officer in the British Army, experimenting on a billiard table, came up with the game we now know as snooker.

At the 2015 World Championship the best players on the planet were competing for a top prize of £300,000, watched by nearly half a billion people around the globe. Two of snooker’s leading journalists, Hector Nunns and David Hendon, plot snooker’s course from small beginnings to a major international sport… INDIA, BIRTHPLACE OF SNOOKER The first ever Indian Open ranking tournament was staged in New Delhi in 2013, an occasion celebrated with gusto throughout the snooker world. This was partly due to the emergence of two fine professional players from that country, eventual finalist Aditya Mehta and former billiards champion Pankaj Advani, with the prospect of plenty more to follow. However it also provided the perfect opportunity to reflect upon the very origins of the sport 138 years earlier, with the game having been invented in 1875 by the British Army in the Indian town of Jubbulpore (or Jabalpur, as it is now known) situated around 450 miles south-east of the capital.

According to author and essayist Compton MacKenzie in his account in ‘The Billiard Player’ magazine of 1939, young lieutenant Neville Chamberlain (not the former British Prime Minister) was experimenting on the officers’ mess table with the existing game of ‘Black Pool’ featuring 15 red balls and a black. Having thrown on additional coloured balls and heard that rookie cadets at the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich were called ‘snookers’, Chamberlain observed that all those present were snookers at this tweaked version of the game, and the name instantly stuck. His Devonshire regiment, which later became the Devonshire and Dorset and are now known as the Rifles, remain fiercely proud to this day of their role in the invention of snooker. Neville Chamberlain Soon after, Chamberlain was based in the Tamil Nadu hill station of Ootacamund – or ‘Snooty Ooty’, as the exclusive mountain retreat was often known. And such was the young officer’s enthusiasm for his new game there that he even named his horse ‘Snooker’.

The further development of the sport took place in the colonial-style Ooty Club, very much a part of snooker folklore and somewhere that current World Snooker chairman Barry Hearn insists remains on his ‘bucket list’ to visit. The club features an original snooker table from the period in use today and walls still thick with tiger, leopard and deer hunting trophies – and it was from here that word and rules of the new game circulated throughout India and the former British Empire. Membership of the club at that time was restricted to “officers of the armed forces, and gentlemen moving in general society”, though luckily for most, those rules have since been eased. Rumours of this new phenomenon had reached Great Britain and aside from the birth of a certain Joe Davis in 1901 – more of whom later – the years that followed saw snooker slowly grow in the United Kingdom, cue manufacturer and billiards player John Roberts Jr helping to spread the gospel after a trip to India. Around 1910, century breaks were attributed to Scot Tom Aiken, a billiards champion, Cecil Harverson, Phil Morris of Tottenham and Lucania Hall manager George Hargest.

The first amateur snooker championship was staged during the Great War, with the result at that time decided by points aggregate after seven frames – a very early precursor to the shorter format of the modern-day European and Asian Tour series. Snooker’s rules, which had featured inconsistencies, were finally dragged together in 1919, also the year that the re-spotted black was introduced to ensure each frame had a winner. How much drama that innovation has produced over the years, and still does to this day. With a number of established amateurs, it took a man who would become snooker’s first superstar to usher in the age of professionalism. JOE DAVIS AND PROFESSIONALISM Snooker’s next era belonged to one man only – the incomparable and all-conquering Joe Davis. The others involved as professionalism took a hold were more often than not bit-parts in the Joe show and they knew it, with varying levels of resentment. However the years from the mid-1920s unquestionably also marked an exciting phase in the game’s emergence and saw it challenge and overtake the more established game of billiards in the UK, with matches drawing crowds in the thousands.

Joe, along with younger brother Fred, was born in Whitwell, Derbyshire just past the turn of the century – sons of a miner who turned publican at the Queens Hotel, Whittington Moor which crucially housed a full-size billiards table. And Joe would go on to become a strong contender for the tag of greatest player of all time with his incredible longevity at the top and unmatched exploits on the table. He won 15 world titles in succession, the last coming after World War Two. He was also the driving force behind the first professional World Championship in 1927, the forerunner of today’s tournament that will be watched by hundreds of millions around the globe. The famous silver trophy that will be held aloft by this year’s champion on May 5 has not changed – bar a few extra names engraved in the intervening years. Though weaned on billiards and like many others initially looking down on the new sport Joe, a financial pragmatist, immediately saw snooker’s greater earning potential.

When he claimed victory from a field of 10 entrants in that 1927 final at Camkin’s Hall, Birmingham, 20-11 against Tom Dennis, the man unable to focus with his right eye and variously called the ‘Sultan of Snooker’ and the ‘Emperor of Pot’ pocketed a princely £6 10s. Sidney Smith, another son of the Derbyshire snooker hotbed of the time, became the first man to make a total clearance (136) at the Daily Mail Gold Cup in 1939. And the first post-WWII World Championship final between Joe and Australian Horace Lindrum, won 78-67 by the Englishman at the Royal Horticultural Hall to sell-out crowds of 1,200 twice a day for a fortnight, represented a peak leading to almost inevitable decline in interest and commercial sway. Fred won the first of his eight world titles in 1948, and the BBC, who are again providing the pictures from this year’s Crucible action, made their debut outside broadcast coverage of snooker from Leicester Square Hall in 1950.

In 1952 a boycott by most of the top players left only two entrants. Lindrum beat New Zealander Clark McConachy 94-49 at Houldsworth Hall in Manchester in a ‘world final’ contest recognised by virtually nobody, though Lindrum’s family were still protesting he was the first Australian to win it when Neil Robertson lifted the trophy in 2010. And on January 22 1955 Joe, also referred to as the ‘Grandfather of Snooker’, became the first man to have a 147 maximum break officially recognised in an exhibition against Willie Smith that effectively also brought the curtain down on Leicester Square Hall, formerly Thurston’s (a table manufacturer) and an iconic playing venue for half a century. Joe, having already produced at least two coaching manuals, brought out in 1956 the definitive ‘How I Play Snooker’, a sacred text of technical know-how that has since been described as “the bible” for all players by six-time world champion and namesake Steve Davis, handed the book by his father Bill.

One of the 56-year-old’s only unfulfilled career ambitions remains to bring out a tome to rival it. However, Joe’s decision to retire from the World Championship in 1946 but continue to play in tournaments and exhibitions seriously devalued the game’s premier event as everyone knew the best player wasn’t in it. It led to a decade of decline before the sport was rescued by a medium which would herald a new dawn. THE AGE OF COLOUR In July 1969, man first walked on the moon and, that same month, snooker took its own giant leap, which would lay the groundwork for the professional circuit as we know it today. Pot Black was a weekly series designed to showcase the BBC’s new colour service. The controller of BBC2 was David Attenborough, who would become a broadcasting legend through his ground-breaking natural history programmes. He wanted content which could emphasise colour. Snooker, which also had the advantage of being easy to cover, fitted the bill perfectly. Ted Lowe, a former manager of Leicester Square Hall in London, who had lent whispering commentaries to snooker shown by the BBC in black and white, devised the format and eight professionals were invited to play.

The series was a huge hit and players quickly became well known, which in turn boosted their capacity to earn money from exhibitions. Joe Davis, John Spencer, Ray Reardon and John Pulman All this had seemed unlikely in 1957 when snooker’s very future appeared doomed when the World Championship was discontinued through lack of interest. It had been revived by Rex Williams in 1964 and played as a series of challenge matches, all seven of which were won by John Pulman. In 1968, the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association was established and the following year the championship reverted back to a knockout format. John Spencer won it in 1969 but Ray Reardon, a former miner and policeman, would dominate the 1970s, winning six world titles. Reardon was the period’s leading player but its star was a young Northern Irishman whose lightning fast skills had been honed in the Jampot club in Belfast. Alex Higgins was a firebrand whose very being seemed destined to challenge the establishment on and off the table.

He won the world title at his first attempt in 1972, pocketing a first prize of £480, and spectators packed into exhibitions to watch him play. It was ‘Hurricane’ Higgins, despite his bad behaviour, or maybe because of it, who gained snooker popularity and publicity in this time where Pot Black was still the sport’s main TV outlet. Sponsors, particularly from the tobacco industry, started to take notice and the BBC increased its coverage with highlights from the World Championship and a new invitation event, the Masters. As Reardon, Spencer and Higgins led the way on the table, things were moving forward behind the scenes under the astute stewardship of Mike Watterson, an independent promoter who was savvy enough to realise the sport’s potential as television exposure created increased sponsorship opportunities. The World Championship had been played in various outposts, including Australia, before Watterson looked for a new home for the 1977 tournament, ideally an intimate set-up which could become a permanent venue for the sport’s Blue Riband event. One night his wife, Carol, returned from seeing a play at a theatre in Sheffield which she thought may fit the bill.

And so the stage was set for snooker’s transformation from relative obscurity to front page news as the game hit the heights like never before. DAVIS AT THE HEAD OF THE SNOOKER BOOM The Crucible stands in the middle of Sheffield city centre. For 50 weeks of the year this theatre-in-the-round stages great dramatic works, but for 17 days annually it becomes a sporting hub where careers are defined and dreams are made or shattered. John Spencer triumphed at the 1977 championship there before Ray Reardon won his sixth world title the following year. 1978 had seen the BBC considerably increase its coverage of the tournament and they were rewarded with stellar viewing figures. In a decade, only Alex Higgins had successfully challenged the Reardon/Spencer grip on the World Championship but the old order was to be irrevocably broken in 1979. Terry Griffiths’s triumph as a qualifier in his first season as a professional acted as a catalyst for many amateurs to take a chance on the pro ranks. One ginger-haired Londoner had already made the leap.

Steve Davis of Plumstead was a shy but dedicated player tutored by his father, Bill, and managed by an extrovert businessman called Barry Hearn, who ran a chain of Lucania snooker clubs. Steve Davis As the 1980s dawned, Davis and Hearn set about cleaning up on and off the table. Davis’s first major success came at the 1980 UK Championship and he ended the season by winning the world title, Hearn barrelling across the Crucible stage and nearly knocking him over in jubilant celebration. With the world champion under his wing, Hearn began to see the possibilities of snooker outside of mere results. With a natural touch for the popular he began to build his Matchroom empire by signing more players and promoting independent tournaments. These were golden years. All over the UK, snooker clubs were opening and a vibrant amateur scene began breeding the stars of the future. ITV had enviously viewed the BBC’s audience figures and began televising its own events. Thus, a professional circuit built up and prize money rocketed.

Sponsors were lining up to invest in a sport which the British public watched like a soap opera, with its distinct cast of characters, many of whom found their private lives the subject of unwanted attention from a tabloid press also riding the boom. Higgins was inevitably the subject of many of these stories. The volatile bad boy of the baize won an emotional second world title in 1982, tearfully beckoning his wife and baby daughter on to the Crucible stage in the moments following his 18-15 victory over Reardon. Cliff Thorburn had become the first non-British world champion in 1980 and made the Crucible’s first 147 break in 1983, a year before another Canadian, Kirk Stevens, made one at the Masters. Jimmy White, who had won the world amateur title at the age of 18, missed out on a world final place in 1982 when Higgins made a miraculous clearance of 69 while trailing 15-14 in their semi-final before winning the decider. White fought back from 12-4 down to Davis in the 1984 final but was beaten 18-16.

Davis was indeed the man to beat. He made the first televised maximum break at the 1982 Lada Classic, captured six UK Championship crowns and spent seven years as world number one. However, he was on the wrong end of the most famous snooker match of the boom years. In 1985, he built an 8-0 lead over Dennis Taylor in the world final and was apparently coasting to a third straight title. Taylor, a Northern Irishman who wore large ‘upside down’ spectacles, fought back and at 11pm they were level at 17-17 with one more frame to play. It lasted over an hour and came down to the final black. Davis had a chance to pot it but missed, leaving Taylor to sink it. 18.5 million viewers were still watching BBC2, a record audience to this day for the channel and for any UK programme broadcast after midnight. Despite this reverse, and one to 150-1 pre-tournament hopeful Joe Johnson in 1986, Davis, like snooker itself, remained imperious throughout the 1980s.

In 1989, he crushed John Parrott 18-3 to win a sixth world title. He seemed unstoppable, but a young man from Scotland had other ideas. THE HENDRY YEARS Every so often in sport there comes along an individual who not only dominates rivals in competition, but introduces a whole new dimension and changes the way a game is played – and Scotland’s Stephen Hendry was to prove just such a figure in snooker. Born in South Queensferry, Hendry was bought a small table by his parents as an afterthought at the age of 12. On such twists of fate are legends formed. He swiftly served notice of a growing force with wins at the Scottish Under-16 and Scottish amateur level, turning professional at the tender age of just 16 years and three months. By the time Hendry retired in 2012, he had set records that may never be broken, and built up a glittering and trophy-laden CV, not least with his achievements on the greatest stage of all, the World Championship at the Crucible Theatre.

Hendry’s legacy will therefore not only be title triumphs and memories, but the certainty that many of those now at the top of the game were hugely influenced by what they saw him doing on the table in his pomp, the shots he played and the attacking approach to break-building and single-visit snooker he espoused. Stephen Hendry With the world waiting for someone to inherit the Steve Davis mantle, Hendry – with manager Ian Doyle guiding his career – unhesitatingly leapt up to the plate. The early milestones came and went. There was a first Crucible appearance at 17, famously being applauded off by Willie Thorne after losing 10-8. And a first ranking title in 1987, as Hendry beat Dennis Taylor 10-7 at the Grand Prix. The dominance truly began in the 1989-90 season, culminating in a first world title – and Hendry, now 45, remains at the time of writing the youngest player to win it at 21 years 106 days.

Six further times Hendry lifted the trophy at the Crucible, and inevitably his series of finals against People’s Champion Jimmy White are the best remembered, with the Scot often unfairly cast in the role of the hunter who killed Bambi’s mother. Four times he snatched the prize away from the Whirlwind, including the remarkable ten frames in a row to win 18-14 in 1992, and the ice-cool 58 clearance to win 18-17 in 1994 with a broken bone in his arm after White had missed a black off the spot in the decider. In these and other successes Hendry was fearless, aggressive, ruthless, focused and determined – and executed tough shots under the most intense pressure time and time again. And he never forgot the trailblazing he was doing for Scottish snooker, walked in by a piper with Alan McManus for their all-Tartan 1993 Crucible semi-final. Not all of Hendry’s finest moments came in Sheffield, though. In 1994 he made seven century breaks in the UK Championship final, beating Ken Doherty 10-5 in Preston.

And in 1997 he recovered from losing six frames in a row in the final of the Liverpool Victoria Charity Challenge to come out at 8-8 and win the match against Ronnie O’Sullivan with a 147 maximum break. While it is possible O’Sullivan could get to Hendry’s mark of seven world titles and 775 career centuries, the 36 ranking titles record looks secure for all time as does the 27 consecutive appearances in the final stages of the blue-riband tournament in Sheffield. Victories over Hendry in big matches at or near his peak were rare, hard-earned and for that reason all the more special. Just ask Ken Doherty what beating him in the Crucible final meant in 1997, or Peter Ebdon with his ‘revenge’ showpiece victory in 2002 after losing in the 1996 final. John Parrott and John Higgins also claimed world titles in the 1990s. Hendry also remains the last snooker player to seriously figure in the annual BBC Sports Personality of the Year poll, coming second only to Paul Gascoigne in 1990.

For many, Hendry gets the nod as the greatest player of all time – but like all reigns his was to end, with a group of players he inspired seizing the initiative. THE GOLDEN CROP BEAR FRUIT While Stephen Hendry was taking snooker to another level in the early 1990s, a trio of teenagers were taking their first steps on the professional circuit, the start of a journey which would propel all three to the top of the sport. The circuit had gradually grown from a handful of professionals to 128 players, but in 1991 the WPBSA decided to throw the pro ranks open to anyone willing to pay the entry fees. Suddenly there were 700 professionals, a revolution which swept away many of the now ageing characters who were such an important part of the 1980s boom. Ronnie O’Sullivan’s name was known long before he turned professional. His father, Ronnie senior, instilled in him a disciplined practice routine from boyhood and brought leading amateurs to the family home to play his son on their full sized table.

O’Sullivan cut a swathe through the amateur ranks and won 74 of his 76 qualifying matches in his debut season, 1992/93. Snooker had decamped to the Norbreck Castle Hotel in Blackpool for a long summer of preliminary rounds and O’Sullivan emerged as the undoubted star. Remarkably, a year later he beat Hendry 10-6 in the UK Championship final the week before he turned 18, becoming the youngest ever ranking event winner. His performances were often dazzling. At the 1997 World Championship he made a 147 break in a record time of just five minutes, 20 seconds. Ronnie O’Sullivan O’Sullivan had the world at his feet. But away from the table, he struggled from depression, triggered by his father’s life conviction for murder. O’Sullivan’s magisterial performances on the baize were therefore coupled with erratic behaviour, disciplinary action and constant threats to retire. He did not win his first world title until he was 25, in 2001. A second followed in 2004 and third in 2008.

After his fourth in 2012 he finally went through with his threat to walk away, taking a year off, apart from one minor event. However, the time away proved to O’Sullivan that snooker was still in his blood. He returned to win a fifth world title in 2013. With four UK and five Masters titles, plus a record 12 maximum breaks, his claim to be the greatest ever was strengthened in his late 30s, when most players decline. He could have won more but for his two contemporaries, John Higgins and Mark Williams, the other celebrated members of the class of 1992. Higgins, an all-round player in the Steve Davis mould, was the first of the three to win the world title. His 1998 triumph saw him end fellow Scot Hendry’s eight-year reign as world number one. Higgins, who had won three ranking titles while still a teenager, was a regular tournament winner but it took him nine years to capture a second world title. He quickly won two more, in 2009 and 2011, as well as three UK titles and the Masters twice.

Williams became the third Welshman and first left-hander to win the World Championship in 2000. In 2003, he won a thrilling contest with Ken Doherty 18-16 to complete a clean sweep of that season’s three major titles, having already captured a second UK Championship and second Masters, a feat only previously accomplished by Davis and Hendry. Laid back off the table, Williams was ruthless on it, his mettle having been proven by edging Hendry 10-9 on a re-spotted black in the 1998 Masters final. O’Sullivan, Higgins and Williams were products of the 1980s UK snooker boom. They were inspired by the blanket TV coverage, played in the sundry junior and amateur events and climbed their way up from the bottom rung of the qualifying ladder to the very top. From 1998 to 2013 they won 11 of the 16 World Championships between them. They were the leading lights as snooker entered a new millennium, which would see the sport exploring new global opportunities.

SNOOKER GOES GLOBAL Despite its British roots, professional snooker made several forays to foreign climes before travelling became the norm for top players. South Africa staged challenge matches in the 1960s, the 1975 World Championship was played in Australia, there were regular tournaments in Canada in the 1970s and in the 1980s Barry Hearn’s Matchroom led the way in spreading the gospel to countries such as China, Hong Kong, Thailand and the United Arab Emirates. The first ranking event staged outside the UK was the 1988 Canadian Masters. There were European Opens in France, the Netherlands and Belgium and an Asian Open in China in 1990. Thailand became a regular and popular stopping off point for the circuit in the 1990s after the emergence of James Wattana, who won three ranking titles, including his home event on two occasions. It was not until the new millennium however that snooker’s global reach was truly explored thanks to a Chinese teenager and a pan European broadcaster. Ding Junhui had been touted as a star of the future from a very young age but found the UK-based qualifying set-up tough.

He was withdrawn from the 2005 China Open in Beijing and then re-entered as a wildcard. Sensationally, just days after turning 18, he won the tournament, beating Stephen Hendry 9-5 in the final. 110 million viewers watched on Chinese television and it sparked a boom similar to the one the UK had enjoyed two decades earlier. Meanwhile, Eurosport, which had showed snooker sporadically for years, signed a deal to broadcast every major event, bringing the sport to viewers in 61 countries, many of them completely new to the game. Like British audiences, they had a cast of characters to which to warm. O’Sullivan, Higgins and Williams remained the holy trinity but there were world titles too for Peter Ebdon (2002), Shaun Murphy as a qualifier (2005) and Graeme Dott (2006). Ding won two UK titles and Neil Robertson of Australia emerged as a top player, eventually triumphing at the Crucible in 2010. At the Masters, Paul Hunter won three dramatic finals, all in deciding frame finishes having been behind each time.

Hunter’s easy going manner, good looks and genuine humility made him a popular new star and his performances helped keep snooker in the spotlight. Everyone in the sport was devastated when he died from a rare form of cancer in 2006 at the age of only 27. Off table things were less rosy. The UK government had prohibited tobacco companies from sponsoring sport, which helped create a huge hole in snooker’s finances and, despite the increasing global interest, the circuit began to shrink. There was nothing wrong with snooker on the table but its administration needed a serious overhaul to maximise its popularity. The task fell to a man synonymous with the game’s boom years of the 1980s. THE HEARN REVOLUTION Today in 2014 snooker stands as a truly global sport, its tentacles forever reaching into new territories. It is played in 90 countries by over 120 million people, and watched by 450 million worldwide. One of the fastest-growing sports on the planet is also knocking on the door for future inclusion in the Olympic Games.

But just a few short years ago the game stood at a major crossroads, having seen the number of full ranking tournaments drop to six, and with leading professionals voicing concerns that their lack of earning opportunities were rendering them little more than ‘part-timers’. Ronnie O’Sullivan, speaking in 2009 as the situation came to a head, called for a ‘Simon Cowell’ figure to step in and save snooker. As it turned out, that man was Barry Hearn. Former WPBSA and World Snooker chairman Sir Rodney Walker effectively held a vote of confidence in his own regime in December of 2009, and the membership voted 32-24 against his re-election, paving the way for Hearn to assume control. And having been voted on as WPBSA chairman Hearn, determined to succeed in a sport that had kick-started his own career, asked for a mandate from the players to take the commercial rights and move it forward.

Barry Hearn Owner of Leyton Orient Football Club, a successful darts and boxing promoter and manager of Steve Davis and formerly a large stable of snooker stars at Matchroom in the 1980s, Hearn pledged in a series of frank exchanges with the players, many of them highly sceptical, to put on more events and increase prize money and earning opportunities. In a crucial vote in the summer of 2010, Hearn squeaked home by 35 votes to 29. The revolution might easily not have happened, with the new World Snooker supremo insisting he would have walked away had he lost. And he has delivered what was promised in a way that has seen even previously outspoken opponents among the players admit they were wrong, making the regular Players Tour Championship series in Europe and Asia an important part of the calendar.

From six full ranking tournaments and a total prize fund for the season of £3.5million in 2009-10, in 2014/15 there were 11 – in addition to the Masters, 9 more European and Asian Tour events, the Champion of Champions, the World Grand Prix, the World Seniors, and the quick-fire, single-frame Shootout in Blackpool. Total prize money now tops £8million. There have been new tournaments put on in Germany, China, Thailand, Australia, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Poland, Bulgaria, the Netherlands, Portugal, Latvia and India. The years have not been without controversy, with some leading players resistant to the removal of protection previously afforded to the top 16, not least coming in at the 128-man stage rather than the last-32 round – but Hearn and WPBSA Chairman Jason Ferguson have never wavered in their view that this is how a democratic and properly run sport should operate, along the golf and tennis models.

Many within the sport expect India to be the ‘new China’, but if one thing is certain it is that India – where snooker was born in the 19th Century, coming full circle this season – will not be the last new stop on the global route planner as a game which began so humbly continues to fascinate hundreds of millions around the world. Latest News Masters 2018 Tickets On Sale Monday Stay Connected

Question: Stephen Hendry was the World Snooker Champion every year between 1990 and 1996 except for 1991. Who won the title in 1991?
Answer: John Parrott